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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22426576">split</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/livingtheobsessedlife/pseuds/livingtheobsessedlife'>livingtheobsessedlife</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Established Relationship, Exes, M/M, Pining, Post-breakup, dysfunctional but with feelings, pepper Potts is a badass and Steve Rogers goddamn knows it, steve is impulsive but hey so is tony</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 18:29:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,310</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22426576</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/livingtheobsessedlife/pseuds/livingtheobsessedlife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Anything else?” Tony asks, still laughing as he folds his papers back together.</p><p>“Uh, yeah, actually,” Steve says, pushing his chair back with his knees and making a grab for Tony’s collar. It’s an awful angle, far from ideal, and the whole idea is moronic for a hundred different reasons, but Tony’s smile is still lingering from his last joke when Steve leans over and plants a kiss right on Tony’s lips.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve Rogers/Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>125</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>split</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Things didn’t end well, and Steve hates it. </p><p>They’d ended it all with spitting curses and stomped feet. Steve had stormed out of Tony’s townhouse, slamming the door behind him, and Tony had thrown a book at the spot where Steve’s head had been moments earlier. After that, they’d called it off, figuring there was no going back to how they were before that fight.</p><p>But the thing is, Steve kinda wants to. Hell, going back is all Steve thinks about. Even just trying it out, dipping his toes in the water. Something, anything. He thirsts for it, misses every piece of Tony, every day. </p><p>Both of them have red hot tempers, they always have. Steve realizes that now, and he realizes that his feelings still exist, rooted deep somewhere in the spot immediately adjacent to that redhot button inside him that always causes trouble. Steve wants to give things another shot. He misses Tony. </p><p>But Steve is smart enough to know that Tony doesn’t miss him back. Tony brings female suitors to that old townhouse all the time (the names are almost always in some magazine the next day, Steve can hardly avoid it), he makes million dollar deals, and drives Lambourghinis to the Hamptons. Most importantly, Steve knows that Tony doesn’t ever think about him (Steve doesn’t blame him, not when he has all that despite some guy hanging off his arm who is deceptively old and sometimes secretly good at art), so any point about exploring these soft, melting, world-ending feelings tucked in the impenetrable folds of Steve’s heart are utterly pointless. </p><p>Then Steve gets a call, and for a moment his heart lights up like Vegas on New Year’s. </p><p>“Tony?” Steve demands as he picks up on the first ring. The way he snaps so immediately and aggressively is unintentional. His heart couldn’t stop beating the moment he read the caller ID. Tony misinterprets it as harsh, instantaneous disdain, “What do you want?”</p><p>“I think we should meet up. Talk about some things.”</p><p>Steve heart picks up. He swears there’s a flutter somewhere in there, “Really?”</p><p>“I want to talk about the breakup. There’s some things we never really talked about. Publicity stuff, things like that. We need to tie a couple things up.”</p><p>Steve’s heart drops, “Oh, okay, uh- where, when?”</p><p>Tony gives Steve the address to a coffee shop he’s never heard of. The soonest Tony can fit it into his schedule is after the new year. Steve’s wide open all through Christmas, but he lies and fibs some appointments and lunches when he talks to Tony. </p><p>“Okay,” Steve says, nodding anxiously down at the piece of paper that he had scribbled the name of the place on, ”I’ll see you there. And uh, Tony?”</p><p>“Yeah?” Tony sounds impatient.</p><p>Steve isn’t sure what he was going to say anyway, “Nothing. See you then.”</p><p>“Goodbye, Steve.”</p><p>Tony’s already hung up by the time Steve has the chance to echo Tony’s mere platitude. </p><p>Three days into the new year and Steve feels, well, frankly, he feels like shit. He feels like he’s gonna throw up. The thought of seeing Tony again after all that time, after all that agony- it feels impossible. And yet, here he is. Fifteen minutes early. </p><p>Tony, unsurprisingly, does the opposite and shows up thirty minutes later. This was expected, the two men to be on completely different schedules, as if they lived in different time zones altogether. They’re opposites, diametrically opposed, always one without the other: heads and tails, dog and cat, the sun and the moon. They revolve around opposing ellipses, singular orbits that intercross at one blissful point every 300 years. The logical part of Steve’s brain gathered these clues and knew from the start that they were doomed. The dominant part of Steve’s brain, however, the romantic, emotional, ever-so-in-love-with-stupid-Tony-Stark part of his brain dove headfirst into the relationship and got split in two when it shattered into a million pieces. </p><p>Steve’s knee bumps up fast and nervous when Tony enters the shop. For a moment, he swears he isn’t breathing. </p><p>Tony waves at him from the line, holds up a single finger that Steve inherently knows means one sec, be right there, and Steve watches with held breath as Tony orders the largest black coffee the shop offers. </p><p>Tony’s smiling winningly, coffee in hand, when he finally approaches the small table Steve managed to secure. </p><p>Steve stands up quickly, the chair pushing back noisily against the linoleum floor tiles. He tries, and fails, to sound breezy when he says Tony’s name, “Tony, how are you?”</p><p>Tony shrugs and answers blandly, “Can’t complain. Work has been insane lately.” </p><p>He pulls the lid off his coffee as he sits down, cups his hands around it, and crosses his legs neatly under the table. Steve had nervously downed his coffee in the extra near-hour that he had, but he instinctively tries to reflect Tony’s easy position despite that. With Steve, it just comes off as tense.</p><p>“I’m good,” He manages, ambiguous and just about as tense as he feels, “So what did you want to talk about?”</p><p>“Oh, yeah,” Tony says, as if he’s somehow forgotten. He pulls a stack of note paper out of his breast pocket, “Just a couple things. Nothing major, I promise. Just stuff that’s easier to do in person, I swear.”</p><p>The whole time, Steve is vaguely mesmerized by the way Tony talks with his hands, the way his tongue carefully juts out at the steam of the hot coffee. If Tony had asked him to sign a document that legally changed his name to Butt Mcbutterson, Steve probably would’ve done it without a second thought in those moments.</p><p>“Alright,” Tony says eventually, neatly folding up the relevant documents and clapping them gently against the tabletop. Tony smiles again and a million happy memories flood Steve’s mind. He wonders, briefly and self-deprecatingly, what it’s like in Tony’s mind at that moment too, probably bereft of longing, romantic, Steve-related daydreams that’s for sure, “I think that’s about everything.”</p><p>Steve shakes his head at himself, feeling stupid and cloudy-headed, “Uh, yeah, great,” He murmurs, as it hits him that he has no clue what exactly everything means, but it’s too late now.</p><p>“I’ll have my people contact you then,” Tony says as he slips the papers back into his front pocket. </p><p>Steve can't help it, he snorts with quiet laughter, “And by your people you mean just Pepper, right?”</p><p>Steve immediately regrets it when Tony smiles again and Steve effectively melts, his brain useless. He misses being able to kiss that smile right off Tony’s face, misses feeling that smile against his bare stomach in the morning, misses looking out over the breakfast table to see that smile following him. Steve misses Tony. </p><p>The smile folds into an equally roguish grin that Steve also just so happens to miss dearly, “Of course. Pepper misses your husky, manly voice. She’s stuck talking to me all day now. Yes, <i>Pepper</i> will call you. Anything else?”</p><p>Steve isn’t sure at all what takes over him. They’re surrounded on all sides by millennials and teenagers with their noses stuck in laptop keyboards and cell phone message boards, all people culturally conscious enough to be highly aware that infamous exes Captain America and Iron Man are having an openly public meeting right in front of them. Steve does it anyway, despite himself. He needs to feel that smile one last time. </p><p>“Uh, yeah, actually,” He says, pushing his chair back with his knees and making a grab for Tony’s collar. It’s an awful angle, far from ideal, but Tony’s smile is still lingering from his last joke when Steve leans over and plants a kiss right on Tony’s lips. </p><p>It feels like decades pass over the space between their lips and yet mere seconds before Tony is pulling away, staring. At some point, both of Tony’s hands wrapped around the rolled up sleeves of Steve’s flannel, so even as he sits back down, Steve can’t properly escape what he did. </p><p>The positive is that for the first time in his life, Tony Stark seems to have actually shut up for once. </p><p>“Oh,” Tony finally manages absently, a million miles away, “Okay.”</p><p>“Shit.”</p><p>The negative? Steve monumentally fucked absolutely everything up. </p><p>They’re silent and each man is at a loss to do anything besides stare at the open mouth visage opposite them and Steve is positive that the 16 year old drowning in AP Chem notes at the table behind them definitely snuck a picture of that goddamn kiss. </p><p>“What was-“ Tony starts, “What was that?”</p><p>“I, uh- I don’t know, honestly.”</p><p>“Steve Rogers,” Tony murmurs with a shake of his head, “Always keeping ‘em on their toes, weren’t you?”</p><p>Steve feels his face burn and he hurries to get up, get out, to escape. It was supposed to be over, why does he keep dragging this out?</p><p>“I’m sorry. I-I don’t know what came over me,” He’s pulling his coat on before Tony’s able to get a word in edgewise. Steve doesn't care much to hear Tony’s meaningless scriptures of an echoing ‘<i>don’t worry Steve, it didn’t mean anything, I don’t care</i>’, “I’m sorry. Just- pretend I never did that. I look forward to talking to Pepper. Take care of yourself, Tony.”</p><p>Steve lingers for the briefest of moments, knowing it’s his final goodbye, memorizes the soft, surprised look tugging at Tony’s face. Then he gets the hell out of dodge. </p><p><i>So stupid</i>.</p><p>He’s four storefronts over and practically off the curb hailing a cab when Tony catches up to him. </p><p>He’s got one arm shoved into the wrong coat sleeve and his sunglasses pushed up into his hair, on the verge of falling right off his face. He left his coffee back at the table, forgotten in the moment and letting steam out into the bustling coffee shop. </p><p>“Steve!” He calls, his voice heavy with panting breaths, “Please- hold on!”</p><p>Steve has one hand curled around the cab door handle as he waits patiently. There’s a small part of him that will wait patiently for Tony Stark for the rest of his life, “I said I was sorry, you-“</p><p>“What was that?” </p><p>It’s demanding and brash and frantic and a smal part of the fervor in between Tony’s panting breaths transports Steve back to a night of cursing and screaming and i can’t do this. Steve’s superhuman forearm tenses, a physical tangent to his escape. </p><p>“It was a mistake,” Steve repeats. It’s his story and he’s sticking to it, “I’m sorry, Tony.”</p><p>“No. No, Steve. Just no. Despite everything that’s happened, how could you forget that I know you. You’re an emotional, sentimental, romantic, dumbass idiot, but you don’t do anything<i> just because</i>. You don’t make mistakes like that.”</p><p>It’s the emotional, dumbass, stupidly-in-love-with-Tony part of his brain that takes hold and spits back with the guttural sort of laugh, “I broke up with you, didn’t I?”</p><p>And Steve can do nothing but watch, sit back in his proverbial red crushed velvet seat as the realization of what he just said passes over Tony’s face like the slow motion climax of an old black and white western, all conflict and awe. </p><p>Steve backtracks instantly.</p><p>“I didn’t mean to say that, I-“</p><p>And then Tony’s rushing forward and kissing him.</p><p>Right there on the street. In front of the whole goddamn world. Not just a couple of starving artist millennials trying to drown themselves in coffee. In front of the birds and the bees and the wandering eyes of New York busy bodies. They’re in upper Manhattan, midday, absolutely <i>surrounded by people</i>. Steve thinks, somewhere in the back or his mind, the part not completely distracted by the way Tony’s lips feel on his, that there are at least two tabloid offices that would love to see their little spectacle located in the skyscraper towering over them. </p><p>Steve’s the one out of breath when Tony finally pulls away. Steve holds a white grip on Tony’s jacket sleeve, the one he actually managed to put on correctly. Tony has him effectively pinned against the taxi, ass pressed embarrassingly against the tinted window, and there’s not a single part of Steve that is about to complain about his current position. </p><p>“Wh-what was that?” Steve says, sounding like an echo in an endless, bat infested cavern. His eyes refuse to move away from the soft pink of Tony’s lips. </p><p>“Falling in love with you,” Tony says, pauses, voice low and sincere and bright all at the same time, lips drifting toward a low spot on Steve’s jaw, “Was the biggest mistake of my life.”</p><p>Steve’s intake of breath is completely involuntary, an inhuman sort of surprise as he holds on tighter to Tony’s sleeves, refuses to let go.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“You’re an idiot, Steve Rogers,” Tony says, and he kisses him again. </p><p>This time, Steve holds on for dear life.</p><p>“I love you,” Steve breathes heavily into Tony’s ear, breath sad and furious and over the moon, “I love you so fucking much.”</p><p>“That mouth of yours, tsk, tsk,” Tony snickers, and the sound of it makes everything okay again. Steve lets the taxi drive away when Tony pulls away and grabs confidently at Steve’s hand, “I love you too, Steve.”</p><p>They go back to the coffee shop together, hand in hand, neither out of breath, neither furiously fleeing the scene. Just, together. </p><p>Steve’s opening the door for Tony as they find their way back to their previous table when Tony groans audibly. Steve cocks an eyebrow in his direction, curious and ever amused. </p><p>Tony practically throws himself at his coffee, “Pepper’s gonna be so pissed that she has to unfile this paperwork.”</p><p>“I’m sure she’ll understand.”</p><p>“I don’t think you get how much she hates paperwork.”</p>
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